As mentioned above, this is the same issue as M-x grep. I hope we can
fix it for Emacs-24 (by making compile.el use syntax-propertize-function
rather than font-lock), but for Emacs-23 the only solution I can offer
is to configure the relevant faces so they look the same as default.

Would it be possible to make a quick fix for needs like those we are
discussing here by just allowing font-lock to set a property 'noface
instead of face? Or perhaps allow the display engine to bypass the
'face property?

I believe that the fix needs to occur at a meta level to font lock. If
modes are changing a user preference randomly, that's not good. The
user preference needs to take precedence. It sounds as though it needs
to be possible to prevent font locking from being turned on.